


you should know i’ll be there for you

by scoutshonour



Category: Boy Meets World
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied Jack Hunter/Eric Matthews, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Sibling Bonding, and also more lighthearted/humorous than a trip to a cemetery might suggest i promise, brother-centric tho and not really about Chet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:55:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29849457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scoutshonour/pseuds/scoutshonour
Summary: A brotherly outing to visit their father’s gravestone to commemorate six months of Chet kicking the bucket will probably be as fun as it sounds.But Jack asked. Shawn will hate it but he’ll do it.
Relationships: Jack Hunter & Shawn Hunter, Shawn Hunter & Eric Matthews
Comments: 5
Kudos: 14





	you should know i’ll be there for you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FacetheRavenclaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FacetheRavenclaw/gifts).



> hellooooo, i'm back again with my abundance of feelings for the hunter brothers and the relationship they could've had.
> 
> re: the timeline/canon compliancy, uhh, idk? i haven't finished s7 and forgot the specifics of what's happened, so this takes place during the same year, but everyone is still broken up and they're all just vibing in college. so if there's an inconsistency there, that's why, but also canon BMW is just time inconsistency after time consistency so really, if i am inconsistent, i'm just following canon, u know?
> 
> and lastly, this one is for Kelly!! my first shawn & jack fic resulted in your friendship and writing this one was as fun and worthwhile as it was because i thought of you and our discussions of BMW. so, this as a gift to you in exchange for the gift of your friendship? seems more than logical to me. all the love, dear :')) <3
> 
> (also. i highly recommend [her ongoing, multi-chap rewrite of BMW from season 5-7.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25637701/chapters/62237596) it's *brilliant*.)
> 
> okay, egregiously long author's note is DONE. thank u for reading this and for checking this fic out!!!

Shawn is trying and mostly not failing to study. 

He has his pencil between his teeth. His eyes are narrowed as he tries to reread his notes about Descartes and feels, not for the first time, terribly guilty about all the times Topanga has had to suffer through his handwriting to check over his homework and assignments. Every time she’d gripe about his handwriting, he’d tell her, _Pfft, my handwriting could be so much worse, babe._

 _That’s impossible,_ she’d respond, and whew, was she right. Surprise surprise. 

“Jack?” Shawn calls out, his voice muffled by the pencil still in his mouth. He doesn’t remove it, even at the vaguely disgusted look that Jack throws him from behind the sink. It’s a lot better than Jack’s earnest but poor attempts at hiding how grossed out he was by Shawn’s general Shawn-like habits. Shawn appreciates the open judgement from Jack now. Really. “Come read this.”

“I’m cooking,” Jack complains as he’s already halfway across the room, marching towards Shawn with his freakishly good posture. “What is it?”

Shawn looks up from his notes. Jack stands behind the edge of the sofa, looking visibly annoyed with his bright red apron, spatula in hand, and the drop of sauce dotting the tip of his nose. It’s an incredible accomplishment that Shawn doesn’t burst into laughter.

Jack doesn’t seem to see it that way. “Do _not_.”

“Not what? I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re laughing!”

“No, I’m trying not to!”

“Exactly!” Jack points the spatula at Shawn. For someone who doesn’t want Shawn to laugh at him, he’s making this extremely difficult for himself. “What. Do. You. Want.”

“You used to be nicer,” Shawn half-complains as he drops his spit-covered pencil into his lap. He thrusts his notebook into Jack’s hands and points to the top of the page. “Can you read this and tell me if it looks like _death_ or _clear_?” 

Jack brings the notebook close to his eyes, squints at the page. Shawn squirms in his spot, already feeling judged. Jack’s handwriting is nice and neat. Jack (mostly) doesn’t study for big tests the day before them. Jack cooks nice home-cooked meals for the two of them and genuinely doesn’t mind that Shawn rarely contributes, mostly using the time to last-minute cram for the next school-day as their radio plays from the kitchen counter. 

After several long seconds, Jack looks back at Shawn and, in lieu of answering Shawn’s question, says, “How are you able to write so much of what your professor says? They go so fast. I’m never able to keep up like this.” 

Oh. Now it hits Shawn that he wasn’t _just_ feeling a little lesser, but he also absurdly wanted ... this. As revolting as it is to say, let alone to realize he’d wanted it, he did want some kind of approval from Jack.

He has it now. And now, Shawn ... is going to ignore the weird spark of warmth in his chest now and make fun of Jack instead. 

“I don’t worry about making sure my handwriting is all pretty and that I spelled everything correctly and used all my dumb gel pens evenly.”

Jack kindly doesn’t point out that Shawn got him those pens for his twentieth birthday this year. But that momentary politeness is undercut when he says, “Clearly, you _should_ worry about your handwriting. The point of notes is to look them over again in the future. Not to ask your brother, who is still cooking dinner,” Jack stresses with a wave of his spatula, “to decipher your handwriting because you can’t do it yourself.”

“I thought the point of notes was to look like I was paying attention in class,” Shawn says.

“That too.” Jack’s mouth cracks into an almost-smile and just like that, his annoyance fades. He plops down on the sofa next to Shawn. “But hey, it looks like you are actually paying attention! That’s awesome.”

Shawn can’t help but smile a little at Jack’s genuine enthusiasm. “Yeah, well. Apparently, you’re supposed to study in college? Like, make an actual effort, do homework, study for tests, make the money you’re spending maybe worth it someday? I don’t know, still sounds stupid to me, but —”

Jack puffs out a laugh. “When have you ever shied away from stupid?”

Shawn grins, face suddenly warm. A tiny part of him objects. Wants to protest Jack saying that, as if Jack even knows the _brink_ of Shawn’s Shenanigans (the name fondly dubbed by Cory). 

As if they haven’t spent most of their lives apart, each remembering that they had a brother but not much else, having spent more time apart than together. 

As if they aren’t still fumbling around each other, toeing the line past strangers but still slowly ambling towards whatever brotherhood will — or already does? — look like for them. 

But then Jack’s face splits with his dazzling smile. It’s too soft to really resemble Chet, too shy to look like Shawn, and just entirely _Jack_. That tiny part of Shawn’s brain shuts up and lets the moment remain uncomplicatedly nice before it passes.

Shawn clears his throat. He pokes his handwriting with the tip of his pencil. “You can’t call me stupid and not answer my question. Death or clear?”

Jack takes another peek at Shawn’s notes. “Honestly? It looks more like _debt_ to me. Does that help?”

“Obviously not.” Shawn leans back, tossing his head over the back of the sofa. 

“Great,” Jack says chipperly. He tucks Shawn’s notebook over Shawn’s lap before he returns to the kitchen. “You’ll be fine on the test, you know. You’ve been studying for, like, an hour.”

More like staring at the same two pages, constantly having to reread the same few paragraphs not only because of his atrocious handwriting — he should really write Topanga a handwritten apology note with flowers or something, dear God, he feels bad — but because he just can’t focus. 

His Philosophy II class is great. He genuinely likes it, finds it engaging and moving and _important,_ and knows most of the material by heart because of that. But he’s never going to not hate tests that make him remember a bunch of shit like names and dates and the exact spelling of theories. 

It has nothing to do with the fact that Chet was supposed to turn fifty-five today but can’t, because he’s too busy rotting underground, forever stuck at fifty-four. Nope, nope, nope. 

Shawn doesn’t admit any of this. He just cracks an eye open and stares at the tight knot of Jack’s apron over his back. “Don’t encourage me not to study. That’s very irresponsible of you.” 

“Shut up.” But Jack says it with too much warmth to mean it. Kinda like how he’ll interrupt Eric in his late-night, coffee-induced study session when Eric gets so delirious he starts shouting every other word of his reading. Jack will make him a cup of tea. Then the second Eric finishes his last drop, Jack will force Eric into bed. 

But Jack’s a big hypocrite. He’ll come right out of Eric’s room to study in the kitchen, only retreating back to his bedroom when Shawn calls out, _You’re studying too loudly, go to sleep before your dumb Calculus also wakes Eric up, too._ It always works.

Jack doesn’t push it, but Shawn quietly complies anyway. He closes his notebook, tosses it haphazardly over the coffee table, and stretches himself back across the sofa. 

He doesn’t quite fall asleep, but he lands in that fuzzy in between, everything hazy and not exactly real. The radio plays an old song, slow and sweet. Jack hums as he shuffles around in the kitchen, bopping his head along to the song. Until he gives in and does the _dorkiest_ little shimmy with his hips. Jack must think Shawn’s asleep. 

Shawn should probably let him think that. But his eyes catch the framed photo hung next to their clock, the one Jack had wordlessly put up ages ago and Shawn always avoids looking at it. The last photo they have of Chet. The first and only photo they’ll ever have of all three of them together. 

Shawn’s throat closes up. “Jack?”

Jack startles. His hands come up over his heart as he stammers out, “Yeah, Shawn?” His embarrassment is fleeting, though, replaced with a painful amount of concern. 

“You know what today is?”

Jack glances at the calendar on the fridge. “Uh, the twenty-fifth?”

Shawn chuckles, flopping over to his other side to face the inside of the sofa. He hides his face in it, gives in to his eyelids’ constant drooping. “It’s someone’s birthday.”

“Oh? Whose is … oh. I didn’t know.”

“’S okay,” Shawn mumbles, using the crook of his elbow as a pillow. “He barely remembered our birthdays.”

“Yeah, but I should have —” 

Shawn yawns. “If we’re talking who should’ve done what, I promise you, it ain’t you who should’ve done more.”

“Um. Okay. Do you wanna talk about —”

The key jingles. The door is kicked open, followed by Eric’s sunny, familiar voice. “I could smell your pasta from the hallway, Jack, I am _so excited,_ I have literally been thinking about this dinner since my eight am class, and — oh, look, you’ve got sauce on your nose. Lemme get it for ya.”

Shawn’s mostly drifted off this point. He still catches Jack poking Shawn’s shoulder and him muttering, “Thank you for telling me about that, Shawn.”

.

.

.

Shawn doesn’t know how long he’s out until a throw-pillow is tossed at his back.

“I’m warning you that I will finish the rest of your brother’s cooking if you don’t save yourself some right now.”

Shawn grumbles into the sofa’s arm. “Let me sleep in peace.”

“You’re in our living room, dude. Seriously, I move out of the bedroom you and Cor have been hogging since you were four, and I move here only for you to still —”

Shawn shuts Eric up by throwing the pillow back. He doesn’t expect it to actually hit Eric, what with his eyes still shut, but there’s a _thwap._ Eric huffs out a laugh. 

“Good aim, dude,” Eric says.

“Mhm.” Shawn considers his options. His stomach _is_ rumbling and the reason he’s even spending this evening at Jack, Eric, and Rachel’s place is for their weekly dinners. But _sleep_. He’s so fucking tired. It’s not like this is the first time he’s fallen asleep starving, so if he just closes his eyes, ignores how deep his hunger goes —

“Seriously, Shawn, get up,” Eric says. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

“You’re going to finish the pasta, yeah, whatever, go crazy.”

“What, no, I already _told you_ that. I have something else to tell you.”

Shawn rolls over. He squints his eyes open, looking up at Eric. “What?” He sits up suddenly, eyes wide open, spine straight, and fully alert. “Is Cory okay?”

Eric blinks. “Oh, Cor? Yeah, he’s good. Probably.”

“ _Probably_ —”

Shawn doesn’t even realize he’d started to stand until Eric grips both of his shoulders and gently sits him back down. “He’s fine! It’s not about my brother. It’s about yours, actually.”

“Oh,” Shawn says, momentarily relieved, before, “ _Oh_.” He glances around the apartment, only now realizing that Jack isn’t here, and stops upon the distant but clear sounds of the shower and Jack’s horrible singing. 

Eric must notice because he cracks an easy grin. “Talk about tone-deaf, am I right?”

“Not as tone-deaf as —” _Our dad,_ Shawn nearly says. He catches himself, a split-second after his mouth already formed the words, and quickly corrects himself with, “Cory.”

“Don’t change the subject!”

“Wow, this is so important you won’t even take the bait and make fun of Cor?” Shawn raises his eyebrows, ignoring the tightness in his chest. “Something must be really wrong.”

Eric winces. “Not really wrong. Something’s just ... something. Look, Jack’s gonna come back here after his shower and ask you to do something. You’re not gonna wanna do it, but you should say yes.”

Shawn waits for Eric to elaborate but he doesn’t, just punctuates his words with a pat to Shawn’s shoulder. “That’s all you’re gonna say?” Shawn sputters. “Oh my God, is this just some annoying ploy to get me to do all the dishes for a meal I wasn’t even part of? Man, you called me and Cor Thing One and Thing Two all our lives just to pull the exact same shit with _my_ brother. Cory and me did it first. And we did it better. Just saying.”

Eric opens his mouths. Closes it. Opens it again only to flick Shawn’s shoulder. “Shut up. And no, we’re not trying to get you to wash the dishes. But you know, if you do want to wash them —”

“Nope.”

“Okay, well, it was worth asking. I’m serious, though. When Jack comes back and asks, you don’t even have to say yes. Just think about it.”

Shawn tries not to bristle. If Jack really is about to ask him something important, of course Shawn would think about it. He knows Eric doesn’t mean it like that, is just looking out for his friend, but he also knows that Eric’s known Shawn for too long, longer than Jack has, to really think that little of him. Right?

As if Eric has suddenly developed mind-reading powers, he hastily adds, “I just mean that it’s probably not gonna be something you’d wanna do.”

Shawn softens. But he’s still not having any of this. “Maybe if you tell me what this thing is, I’d be more inclined to do it. What’s with the vagueness?”

“It’s just not _my_ thing to tell you.”

“But it is your thing enough for you to warn me about it?”

“It’s not a warning, it’s a gentle heads up.”

“That’s what a warning is.”

“No, this is a warning. Shawn, I’m gonna throw this pillow at you now.”

“What, why —” Shawn cuts himself off as Eric doesn’t even throw the pillow at him but thwacks Shawn’s arm with it. “I’m telling Cory you did that.”

“Thanks for that warning,” Eric says cheerfully. 

Shawn sighs, still awfully confused. “Now that we’ve established what a warning is, sort of, can you just — should I be worried? Scared? Nervous? You gotta give me something, man. At least tell me if, like, you know. If Jack’s alright.”

“Jack’s alright,” Eric says. “You don’t gotta worry.”

“Worry ‘bout what?”

Shawn and Eric whip their heads back to find Jack ambling towards them, freshly-changed into a soft orange sweatshirt and sweatpants. He stops right behind the sofa. “What, guys?”

“Nooooothing,” Eric sing-songs. “Shawn’s just worried about his photography test.”

“Philosophy test,” Shawn and Jack correct.

“That too,” Eric says. “Gosh, isn’t college just the _funnest_?” 

They all share self-deprecating snorts. Jack easily forgets about what he’d overheard. Shawn shoots a grateful look to Eric who just winks before he stands.

“Gotta head back out.” Eric grabs his coat from where it hangs over the sofa and slips into it. “Class.”

Shawn makes a face. “Dude, it’s like seven pm.”

“Dude, I know,” Eric says, pained. 

“ _Dude,”_ Jack says pointedly, leaning over Shawn’s head to clap Eric’s shoulder. “I told you not to take this evening class. Try not to fall asleep and dream of me saying I told you so, but hey, if you do, who am I to stop you?”

Shawn flops down on his back, partly to avoid staying awkwardly close in between Jack and Eric, but also because he’s still so fucking tired. 

Eric elbows Jack with an eye-roll a touch too affectionate to be annoyed. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll dream of you and your pasta which please, for the love of God and my happiness —”

“Oh my God, fine, I’ll save you some,” Shawn says.

Eric pats Shawn on the head then Jack. “Thank you. Who knew the Hunters could be so lifesaver-y?”

Jack swats Eric’s hand. “Ew, why are you calling us savoury?”

Shawn groans into the back of his hand. This can’t possibly be what he and Cory look like. 

Right?

After the astonishingly long three-minutes it takes to clear up the saver-y/savoury misunderstanding, Eric heads out. 

The second Jack closes the front door, he whirls around to face Shawn. His drawn-up shoulders and tight smile are already concerning. “So.”

Shawn’s throat bobs. He sits back up reluctantly as Jack ambles back to the sofa. “So,” Shawn echoes. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Jack says, already off to a terrible lie. The second he sits, his leg starts to bounce up and down repeatedly. His eyes zero in on Shawn’s shitty handwriting from where his notebook rests over the coffee table. “I mean, mostly nothing.”

“Look, is this about what I said with it being m — _our_ dad’s birthday? Because that’s not, I mean, everyone’s got birthdays. Even the dead. Dead birthdays. That’s like, an oxymoron, right?” Now _Shawn’s_ nervous. What the fuck? He looks down at his lap, realizes his leg is also bouncing in tandem with Jack’s. 

Jack laughs shakily. “What do you call dead dead-days? Hm. I guess you’d call that redundant.”

Shawn blinks. For all his talk about how painfully normal Jack is, clean-cut and polite and proper, he is so goddamn weird sometimes. 

“What the hell is a dead dead-day?” Shawn asks.

“Okay, so you know my grandmother?”

“Uh, no?”

“Okay. Well, she died when I was ten.”

Shawn bites back what would probably be a very insensitive comment about how Jack really shouldn’t have expected Shawn to know her then. He just nods, beckoning for Jack to continue.

“And I had a really hard time with it, obviously. My parents kinda figured if they gave me more time, I’d be okay, but I don’t know, it just didn’t happen that way. So when the six-month mark since her death came, we had a little party. It sounds morbid but it was sweet. I got to leave school two hours early, we visited her, drew and coloured pictures of her and talked about her, and got ice-cream after.” 

“That sounds nice,” Shawn says with a soft little smile that he doesn’t realize he’s wearing until Jack reflects it back at him. 

He met Jack’s mother, step-father, and younger sister at Chet’s funeral. They seemed decent enough. Jack’s sister, Sarah, is just shy of thirteen and had made Shawn heart-shaped cookies. It easily beat all of the condolence flowers and casseroles he’d received.

Shawn hadn’t really spent any time with Jack’s family. He could’ve, had he accepted Jack’s mom’s offer to join them in New York for two weeks in July. He’d visit along with Jack, see the city, and get to know his brother’s family. 

It was a nice offer, honestly, but it reeked of sympathy. She hadn’t offered last summer. Shawn wasn’t and still isn’t convinced that Chet’s death suddenly changes how Jack’s mom sees him. He knows she still views him as just some extension of Chet. That’s why she hid all those letters Shawn sent Jack all those years ago and that’s why she still doesn’t like visiting Jack in Philadelphia. 

Now, though, Shawn thinks he kind of gets it. She’d left Chet because of who Chet was: a man that cheats on the mother of his infant only to end up getting that second woman pregnant and end up with two children he’s incapable of raising. She’d never planned on Jack having a younger brother. Especially not a brother raised by Chet, who grew up with the childhood she’d avoided for Jack.

Shawn kind of wishes someone could have avoided all of this for _him._ But c’est la vie or whatever. 

All of it still stings, just not as harshly as before. He can know that Jack has a whole, loving, and normal family outside of Shawn, and have resentment that he doesn’t know how to let go of but can still, paradoxically, be glad about it too. 

Yeah, it would’ve been nice to have Jack growing up but it wouldn’t have been all that nice for Jack. It’s good that Jack has had this seed of warmth and steadiness in his life given to him by his parents.

But then Shawn thinks about the same plate and mug set aside for him every time he’s at the Matthews. The familiar crack of their kitchen door he’s entered about a thousand times which is always unlocked, just for him. The countless times he’s fallen asleep with his head on Cory’s shoulder in their living room, from as young as five to as old as he is today — only to wake up with a pillow wedged behind his and Cory’s heads, each with a blanket strewn over them from shoulder to feet. 

Okay. Maybe, most definitely, he also had his own little seed of warmth and steadiness too. Even if it didn’t come from his own parents. Especially since it didn’t come from his own parents. 

Shawn’s smile softens around the edges. “That sounds really nice,” he says again. “I’m guessing you came up with the fantastic name, _dead dead-day_?”

Jack huffs out a laugh. “My sister. But it stuck. We don’t actually do anything for grandma’s death anniversary, but her half-anniversary.”

“So technically, it’s half-dead dead-day?”

“That’s what I said,” Jack says. “But I was told not to question the logic of my three-year-old sister because it was rude. I guess we can call it that for our dad? ‘Cuz I was thinking, you know, his six-month mark is this Friday, so maybe we could, we could visit him. Together. Just us two.”

Shawn’s breath hitches. He tries to speak but all that comes out is a strangled noise.

“It doesn’t have to be a long visit or anything! And I know, you’re not really into visiting him, but I mean — it’s kinda helped me, the times I’ve gone, and it’s not like it has to help you or anything, it’s different for everyone, obviously, and I know —”

Suddenly able to speak again, Shawn bumps his knee against Jack’s and says calmly, “Hey, chill out. You’re speaking so fast I don’t think you’re remembering to breathe. Don’t make me have to celebrate your dead dead-day six months from now.”

It’s a bad joke. A few months ago, Jack would have definitely looked horrified and chided Shawn for joking about something so serious. Now, he just takes in a deep breath before he laughs and bumps Shawn’s knee back.

“It’s just,” Jack starts again, slower with concentrated effort, “I told you I wouldn’t ask you to come with me again and I meant it. But this just feels a little different. So I understood if you don’t want to —”

“Shut up.”

Jack frowns. “Excuse me?”

The thing is, Shawn wants to say no. It’s bad enough that he’s been lying to Jack and to Cory, Angela, and Topanga about never visiting Chet’s grave. It’s true that he hates going. It’s just not true that that stops him from going anyway. 

But he goes alone. His relationship with Chet was only ever theirs, not anyone else’s, so it only feels right that it stays that way. Even after Chet’s death. 

Besides, he can’t let Jack see him when he’s like _that_. 

“Well?” Jack hedges.

A very annoying thing about Jack is that he’s Shawn’s brother. 

The _most_ annoying thing is that he hadn’t even used it as leverage when he’d asked Shawn. It would’ve been a sure-fire way to get Shawn to go. But Shawn was somehow related to a ridiculously decent guy, so of course, Jack wouldn’t use that to guilt Shawn. 

A brotherly outing to visit their father’s gravestone to commemorate six months of Chet kicking the bucket will probably be as fun as it sounds.

But Jack asked. Shawn will hate it but he’ll do it.

“Of course I’ll go,” Shawn says. “It’s the same day as Morgan’s birthday, so let’s do it before the birthday dinner and the cake at the Matthews’? Way before that, actually, when the sun’s still out and then we can, I don’t know, get some ice cream. Or go to a bar and really honour his memory.”

It’s a joke, honestly, but it just etches deep lines of concern in Jack’s forehead. “Shawn,” Jack says, a sigh weaved into his words, “are you drinking —”

“That was a joke. Alcoholism runs in the family and all that jazz, don’t worry, I’m not —”

Jack drags Shawn in by the shoulders then launches his arms around Shawn’s neck. It’s an aggressively kind hug, one that persists even when Shawn just gawks and hangs his arms uselessly by his sides. But it doesn’t take long for Shawn to relax and slot his arms into place, one around Jack’s shoulder, the other around his back.

“I’m not worried. Not at all,” Jack mumbles. “You sure you’re good to go visit him with me?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Shawn replies, surprised by how much he means it.

.

.

.

That Friday afternoon, Shawn waits past the doors outside of Jack’s Health Economics lecture. 

He doesn’t spend too long waiting for him. Even then, just a few minutes in the October chill and standing still in one spot are brutal. 

The only reason he has a scarf on is because it’s Angela’s, a trade they made during their senior year when they were still dating. He’d liked how his navy sweatshirt looked on her but she wouldn’t accept it until she made him agree to take her scarf. He’d scoffed, because no one uses scarves outside of some fashion accessory. Plus, his neck was too pretty to hide from the world. 

But Angela could’ve given him a piece of lint and he would’ve treasured it forever, keeping it safe and always carrying it with him, so of course, he accepted the scarf. He’s always appreciated it, by virtue of it being from Angela, but only now can he kind of maybe accept that scarves aren’t completely useless.

Dammit. Angela is totally going to say _I told you so._ But as he winds the thick yellow scarf tighter around his neck, he can admit that he totally deserves it.

He also has one mitten on. Obviously, it’s not his. It’s Cory’s. How it ended up in Shawn’s jacket pocket is a mystery but not an interesting one. Their clothes, especially their socks, get mixed up all the time and Cory’s always telling Shawn he doesn’t dress for the cold. It wouldn’t surprise Shawn if Cory had left his mitten there on purpose, but why leave the single one? That’s the real mystery.

Not one that Shawn plans to solve now, though, as he attempts to fit both of his hands in the single mitten. 

He’s so determined that doesn’t even look up when he hears, “ _Hey_! I told you I’d pick you up!”

“And I told you I’d walk here myself,” Shawn huffs. “Guess that makes you a liar since _I_ stuck to what I said and you didn’t.” He tries to jam his right hand into Cory’s mitten quickly, hoping the speed will make it fit, but that just sails the mitten onto the pavement. Shawn’s sigh forms a cloud of air in front of him. 

Before Shawn can even move a muscle, Jack snatches Cory’s now-damp mitten up and shoves it into Shawn’s hand. “Yeah, you coulda had a free car ride but instead chose to walk the twenty-something minutes from your dorm room to my class in this freezing weather with only _one_ mitten on. You’re definitely the real winner here.”

Shawn thwacks the back of Jack’s head with Cory’s mitten. “Thanks for picking that up for me.”

Jack’s jaw drops. It takes a few seconds to stop buffering before he swings to hit Shawn back. But Shawn ducks, so Jack ends up hitting a utility pole.

It takes Shawn an embarrassingly long time to stop laughing. He ends up driving Jack’s car because Jack’s hand hurts so much and, according to Jack, “that’s what you get for laughing at my injury, you jerk.” 

But Jack laughs as he says it, clutching his throbbing, red hand with an almost concerningly wide grin. Shawn’s pretty sure his Jack’s gonna be just fine.

.

.

.

The drive to the cemetery doesn’t take long.

Jack gives Shawn directions. Shawn doesn’t tell him that he already knows the way, even if he’s never driven and has only relied on the bus and his feet. 

Shawn knows he technically isn’t lying. All he’s done is just turn down the handful of other times Jack asked if Shawn wanted to visit Chet with him and imply he doesn’t ever want to see their dad’s headstone. That’s not ...

Okay, it’s not a lie, but it’s still not good.

Shawn tries to find a point during the car-ride to explain, but Jack keeps filling the silence. Questions about classes (good, genuinely, which is weird), when Jon plans on visiting again (Thanksgiving), how’s Cory and Angela and Topanga (as if Jack doesn’t see them nearly every day), okay, how are Cory and Angela and Topanga _really_ in the months since everyone broke up and has stayed broken up (weirdly good too, so much that Shawn is waiting for it to blow over.)

Another annoying thing about Jack? He keeps asking Shawn about himself. Shawn can’t find the right opportunity to fess up. He’s so polite that it’s rude.

“Jack, if you don’t start telling me about your day right now, I swear to God,” Shawn says at one point. It earns him a bewildered look from Jack but also Jack’s recount of his lunch with Eric today that resulted in both of them losing track of time and being late to their classes. (Something that Shawn and Cory have done, like, a dozen times at this point. Jack and Eric are such amateurs.)

By the time they reach the cemetery, it’s a little after five in the afternoon. They walk towards Chet’s gravestone, Jack taking lead and Shawn pretending to follow along as if he doesn’t already know the way, through the almost-unpleasant wind and underneath the expansively blue sky. 

Shawn’s throat feels clogged. He can’t stand looking at Jack’s back so he doesn’t. He keeps his eyes trained on the ground and the blur of dead leaves breezing past their feet. 

After a few minutes, Jack stops abruptly. Reaches back, finds Shawn’s wrist, and squeezes. “We’re here.”

Shawn looks up. He doesn’t know why his heartbeat skitters in his chest. He’s been here before. It’s almost familiar: the patch of green to the right of his gravestone that Shawn likes to sit on, the engraved letters of Chet’s name that Shawn’s traced his finger over countless times. 

So why is there an ache in the bottom of his stomach?

And then he looks at Jack. Jack squeezes the top of Chet’s gravestone. He gives it a weak smile before he says, “Hi, Dad. Shawn came today.”

Oh.

Yeah.

“Fuck,” Shawn says.

Jack’s head snaps to look back at Shawn. “What is it?”

“I should tell you something,” Shawn says, shoving his hands into his coat’s pockets. “You can’t get mad.”

Jack’s forehead wrinkles. “I have a feeling that you telling me not to get mad means I’m going to get mad.”

“Wow. You’ve got great instincts.” Shawn ignores the constant flip-flopping in his stomach as he drops to his knees then sits down. He waits for Jack to follow suit but Jack remains the way he is, squatting with one hand curled at the back of Chet’s gravestone, the other clutching a handful of grass. 

“My instincts are also telling me this has something to do with our father,” Jack says slowly. “Which makes no sense, because what could you possibly have to tell me about him? _Now_?”

Shawn doesn’t like any of this. Yeah, he and Jack have fought but it’s always been about things neither of them could control, nothing they consciously did to each other. When Jack first came into town, Shawn’s anger was more about grief for all the time they lost, all the time he’d spent alone while Jack was out there, the childhood he could’ve had with Jack. After Chet died, Shawn just — just needed somewhere to put all of his hurt and pain and exhaustion and he couldn’t throw it at Chet, so the closest target was Jack. 

It’s not like Shawn’s _proud_ of it. He’s aware that their two big fights, and what appears to be their third fight starting in a few seconds, are all on him. 

He’d like to blame Chet’s influence. Except it feels wrong to pin it on a dead man who was going to change, who was really going to be their father and love them better and for the first time, be _there_ for the both of them. 

(There is the question of whether Chet would’ve actually stuck to his word had he not died. Shawn’s afraid of the answer. 

Even if it’s one he’ll never truly know, he thinks that deep-down, he knows he was always going to end up disappointed. Always going to end up hurt, simultaneously missing and mourning what he had and what he never would.)

Shawn just has to be honest. That’s all he can do anyway, the only thing that means anything right now.

“I’ve visited Dad before,” Shawn admits. He forces himself to hold Jack’s eyes. “I just like to come here by myself. I know I told you I never see him, but I didn’t wanna make you feel bad or for you to think _you’re_ the problem ‘cuz it’s not. It’s just a really private thing and —”

“Dude. Shut up.”

Shawn blinks. “What?”

Jack puffs out a short laugh. He shakes his head as he tugs his wool-hat over his ears which have already turned pink from the cold. “It’s fine. I get it,” Jack says. “You two had your own relationship that I wasn’t part of and —”

“Dude, it’s not like that.”

Jack’s smile is somehow even sadder with the splash of evening sunlight that softens his face. “But it is, though. Isn’t it? It’s not ... I don’t know, it just is what it is. I can’t change that and neither can you.”

“But it can piss you off,” Shawn insists. “You can be pissed off. Especially at me.”

“But I’m not.” Jack plays with the last button of his jacket, doing and undoing it repeatedly. His chin wobbles; Shawn’s not sure if he should pretend not to notice or make it clear that he does. “I mean, yeah. I wish you would’ve just told me you liked going alone. I wouldn’t have asked you all those times or to come today —”

“But I wanted to come today.” Shawn takes his mitten-covered hand and swats Jack’s hands away from his button, forcing Jack to look at him. “Seriously. It’s our dad’s, um, half death-day. That’s an important milestone.”

“Would you have even noticed it if I hadn’t said anything?”

“I mean, yeah? But I guess it’d be more like, oh. Another month. Great.” Shawn’s voice cracks. He stares down at the grass and starts to pick at it, steadfastly ignoring the pressure building behind his eyes. “It’s almost funny. I used to think that too when he’d leave and I wouldn’t know when he’d come back. I’d count the days he was gone as a dumb way to make it feel like he’d be back faster when it always just did the opposite. Now, well. Now I know for sure he isn’t coming back. So, yeah. I would’ve noticed either way.”

“You, uh, you told me once ...” Jack joins Shawn in ripping out blades of grass. This has to be a really rude thing to do to their dad’s resting place. But it’s a little ruder to not stay in touch with one son, even after he moves to the same city as you and lives with your second son, whom you’ve consistently abandoned and neglected for his entire life. So. Chet Hunter’s spirit can handle some grass. 

Jack clears his throat. “You told me once that he left you for more than a year. You had to stay with Cory and Jon and you almost got adopted and — and so I kind of figured that, I don’t know. You not visiting him was because of that. I know you're more private than not, but I figured you just didn’t wanna see him.”

Shawn stills. He flicks his gaze upwards, stares at the 'BELOVED FATHER’ engraved on stone. A harsh ripple of wind tears past them, tousles his hair and nips at every inch of exposed skin, but it’s that word — _beloved_ — that makes him shiver. 

“I don’t know,” Shawn says finally. “It’s hard being his son. You know that.” 

Shawn chances a glance at Jack, worried that Jack’s going to push and poke and prod and want him to open up _here_ of all places. 

But Jack just nods, letting out a small grunt as he finally sits down. “Yeah. But it shouldn’t have been. It’s not supposed to be hard.”

Shawn blinks furiously, willing the wetness in his eyes to dry. “Yeah.” 

“Did you always, um, did you always know ...?”

“No,” Shawn says, knowing exactly what Jack is trying to say. “But I don’t know, I guess over time, you just notice that, oh. Not everyone’s dad says they’ll pick you up from school and never shows up. Not everyone’s dad says they’ll find your mom who skipped out only to also skip out on you for weeks, mostly months at a time. And not every kid gets used to missing breakfast and dinner more days than not because on the off chance there _is_ food in the house, there’s no one to help prepare it. Stuff like that, it’s all normal ‘til it isn’t.” He shrugs, hazards a glance at Jack who looks mortified. 

It’s not like this is the first time Shawn’s told him about this stuff. Jack’s not dumb. It’s just his stupidly-sized heart that hurts, wishing it wasn’t true while hating the fact that it is.

Shawn loves and hates it. Right now, it’s mostly the former, so he tries to smile. “What, you jealous?”

“Absolutely,” Jack jokes or at least, he tries to. The joke falls a little flat with the tears streaming down his face.

“Are you crying because of _me_?” Shawn extends his leg and foots Jack’s ankle, the gesture affectionate, meant to be comforting. “Hey, relax. Don’t be sad over my dumb sob story, okay?”

“It’s not dumb,” Jack rasps, wiping his cheeks. “I’m sad because it _is_ sad. None of it’s fair.”

“Uh, yeah. You just realized that?” Shawn winces at his tone, immediately adding, “Look, it’s not —”

“God, I’m sorry. It’s not like I had to deal with any of this and you just talking about it sets me off? Wow.” Jack laughs mirthlessly, shaking his head up at the sky. 

Shawn heaves a sigh before he scoots over until he’s sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Jack. “It makes sense to me. It’s always been normal to me and I’ve had time to deal, but everything’s still new for you. I get it, okay? But seriously, you can feel bad about it but I don’t want you feeling bad for me.”

“Pfft, me feeling bad for you? No way.” Jack lightly knocks his elbow against Shawn’s arm. His eyes are dry, his smile genuine. “I don’t feel bad for people who leave their socks on the floor.”

Shawn cracks a grin. “Well, I don’t feel bad for the one percent, so.”

“I’m _not_ in the one percent.”

“You had a nanny growing up.”

“That just makes me upper-class.”

“That’s even more gross.”

.

.

.

Sometime later, Jack asks Shawn for, “Just one purely nice memory.” There’s a note of fear in his voice as if he’s afraid Shawn won’t have any. “One that I don’t already know maybe?”

“I can do that.” Shawn hums, trying to breeze through years’ worth of memories without trapping himself in them. He’s sprawled out on the grass, his arms pillowing the back of his head, his right foot stacked over his left knee. 

Jack stares down at him, still waiting. 

“Ooh, okay, I got it.” Shawn digs his elbow into the grass and rests his chin in his palm to look back at Jack. “Okay. So I was, like, eight and Dad was super wasted, right, and he was half-awake on our couch. I couldn’t really tell if he was passed out or not.”

“ _That’s_ what counts as a nice story? Oh my God.” 

Shawn kicks his ankle from the other side of Chet’s gravestone. “I wasn’t finished! Listen. I thought he was passed out but then he started singing somethin’? In his terrible voice, he kept humming what sounded like a lullaby? And so I asked him what he was singing and then he called me _Jack_. And I’m obviously deeply offended.”

“Obviously,” Jack repeats dryly.

“Obviously! So I march over there, ready to yell at him, and then he grabs me.” Shawn decides to pause there, which is an awful idea because the colour in Jack’s face drains. “Oh, no, more like — I mean, he grabbed me and pulled me into a hug. Then he held me. Then he sang that lullaby. And at first, I was not having it. He calls me by the wrong name, touches me with his sweaty arms, gets his beer breath all in my face? Night ruined.”

“This is a touching story,” Jack says.

The only reason Shawn doesn’t flip him off is because that seems rude to do in a cemetery. Not that it’d be disrespectful to their dad but to everyone else resting here. 

So Shawn just raises his eyebrows, a silent _wait for it,_ and continues. “He just kept singing, you know, and it started to feel nice. I started to feel safe. I knew it wasn’t gonna be a bad night, that he was happy-drunk instead of angry or weepy-drunk. And then he started talking about you.”

Jack’s mouth falls open. He straightens, leans his head toward Shawn. “Yeah?”

Shawn can’t help but smile. “Yeah. Talked about how he’d sing you this lullaby when you were a baby. Keep in mind he still thought I was you, so he was all, ‘remember this, Jackie? Used to sing this to you all the time when you were a little baby. Now you’re not a baby no more, but I hope you still remember that. Still remember me.’”

Jack sucks in a shaky breath. He sniffs, rubbing at his eyes, but the curve of his smile is what Shawn tries to focus on. “Of course I did. I _do_ ,” Jack rasps, voice muffled by his sleeve. “That lullaby, was it about some trucker and the roads he chose to take and his weirdly —”

“Large trucker hat?”

“Yeah!” Jack’s face lights up. A breathless laugh stumbles out of him. “Yeah. I remember. I’d figured my mom sang it to me, though. Not him.”

Despite the late October chill and the cold of night beginning to settle in, Shawn feels entirely warm. Jack’s joy feels tangible. Like something Shawn can hold in his hands, in his heart, and keep forever. 

He suddenly doesn’t understand how he’s refuted Jack’s offer to go to the cemetery with him this many times. Or rather, he wishes he hadn’t.

But he’s here now, and Jack’s still grinning, disbelief tinged with elation as his knees begin to bounce from where they’re hugged to his chest.

“You’ve never told me this before,” Jack says.

“I hadn’t remembered,” Shawn replies honestly. “It just kind of came to me. A lot of, um, my memories with Dad are doing that. Not coming back at once but in pieces since he, um, died.”

Jack’s face suddenly quiets. “As in you’ve blocked it out?”

“No. I mean, probably not? Okay, no, _no,_ but it’s more like, little pieces from my childhood just return to me, almost like it’s making up for the fact that he’s not here. Making up for his lost presence or something. It’s ...” Shawn glances down at their father’s resting place, hoping it’ll put the perfect word in his mouth. But it just makes the lump in his throat a little larger, the ache in his heart a little deeper. He sighs. “It’s not good, it’s not bad, it’s just weird.”

“You sure?”

“Don’t you get concerned about me,” Shawn tries to snap but it comes out much softer than intended.

Jack rolls his eyes but not without patting Shawn’s arm again. “Don’t _you_ tell me what to do. I’m not letting a nineteen-year-old boss me around.”

“Coming from the twenty-year-old, that’s a bit dramatic.”

“I’ll be twenty-one in January!”

“You’re still twenty now and still just a year older than me, doofus,” Shawn reminds Jack. “You’re technically my big brother, but just barely. Don’t let that get to your head.”

Without missing a beat, Jack says, “Too late.”

Shawn reaches over to shove Jack’s arm, all while unable to stop smiling.

.

.

.

Neither brother notices how late it gets, even with the sky darkening directly above them, until they spot a pair of women a few feet away. Arms linked together, they each carry a bouquet of flowers as they stop in front of a gravestone.

Shawn squints at them before he elbows Jack. “Hey, you see ’em too?”

“Yeah.” Jack lifts himself off the grass to peer closer at them before he plops back down. The back of his pants is completely stained with grass and dirt. Shawn will _not_ be the one to break it to him. “Huh. What’re they doing here so late?”

“Weird, right? Who visits a cemetery at _this_ hour?”

They pause. Shawn looks at Jack. Jack looks at Shawn.

“We have terrible time management skills,” Jack says. He lifts his arm, stares closely at the watch on his wrist. “It’s almost eight pm. Don’t you have Morgan’s birthday dinner?”

Shawn’s shoulders slump with relief as he jumps to his feet, wincing at the sharp cracks that sound from his legs. “Doesn’t start ‘til eight-fifteen. We can make it in time if you speed.”

“I’m not speeding,” Jack scoffs. “That’s not safe.”

Shawn groans as he grabs Jack’s hand and drags him up, ignoring Jack’s yelps. “Do you hate Morgan, Jack?”

“What? No. Of course not. Why would you —”

“Do you want to ruin her birthday?”

“Shawn, are you seriously implying that you being a little late to her family birthday dinner will ruin her entire day?”

“Are _you_ seriously implying that my presence isn’t so important that being a little late —”

“Okay, enough.” Jack dusts his pants, flicking off the blades of grass and grains of dirt. “I’ll speed a little. So let’s say goodbye to Dad real quick.”

Shawn scratches the back of his neck. He turns to face Chet’s gravestone, throat suddenly dry. It’s ridiculous that he feels shy _now_ , but he does. He knows Jack feels it too because Jack hasn’t spoken either. 

So Shawn takes one for the team and says loudly, “Bye, Dad. We’ll be back soon and we’ll come back together next time too. So. See you then.” 

“See you then,” Jack repeats, clapping the back of Chet’s gravestone. “You mean that? You’d wanna come back together?”

Shawn shoves his hands in his pockets and starts walking backwards towards where they’d parked Jack’s car. “Sure. I mean, yeah. It’d be nice.”

“Really? You don’t have to.” Jack half-jogs in front of Shawn, keeping up with his pace. “It’d be cool with me, obviously, but you don’t have to.”

“I know. But like I said, it’d be nice. This was nice. Right?”

“Right. How different is it from when you usually visit him?”

Shawn thinks it over as Jack gently takes him by the shoulders and guides him into walking forwards. “I just tell him about my day. Normal, random shit like that. I don’t know what else I’d say. Anything meaningful I had to say, I think I already said.” _Right before he died_ , is what Shawn doesn’t say, but the way Jack nods, Shawn’s pretty sure he hears it anyway. “What about you?”

“Oh, um. I tell him a bit about my day too but also other stuff. Stuff about myself? My parents, my sister, Eric, you, obviously, and school, what I like, what I don’t, what I think about ... things.” Jack shrugs forcefully, kicking at a patch of grass. “There are lots of things I didn’t get to tell him. I should’ve but I thought — I just always figured there’d be time.”

“Me too,” Shawn whispers back. He wishes he had something better to say, something that wasn’t unbearably true. But anyone else can give that to Jack. Eric and Rachel especially, both of whom can uplift Jack’s spirits better than Shawn can. 

Shawn’s the only one who gets it. Even if Chet was more of a concept to Jack but all too startlingly real for Shawn, they’re still both mourning what they never had. Shawn’s still the only one who can tell Jack that he knows what it’s like, mean it, and have that mean something.

Shawn slings his arm around Jack’s shoulder. They continue walking like that, silent save for the crunch of leaves beneath their feet and the humming of the wind. 

But when Jack’s car pops into view, Shawn has to say something. So he says, “He really wanted to know you, you know? He would’ve. If he could.”

“But he _could’ve._ He really could’ve.” Jack’s smile is somehow more devastating than if he’d cried. “You think he knew you?”

“I don’t know.” Shawn’s pace slows down as they near the car. His chest feels tight but his mind feels clear. It doesn’t take him long to find his answer. “Either way, I think he could’ve known me better. He should’ve known you better. Mostly, I think a lot could’ve been better but it’s not on you.” He hesitates before he adds, “Not on me, either. We couldn’t have done anything differently.”

As he pulls his car keys out of his pocket, Jack chuckles, the sound empty. “Yeah. Exactly.”

Shawn doesn’t know why he suddenly feels better now but he does.

He climbs into the passenger seat as Jack settles into the driver’s seat. He pulls his seatbelt on before Jack can nag him about it. While Jack turns the headlights on, Shawn fiddles with the radio, turns it on the only station they both like, and sets the volume quieter, to what he knows is Jack’s preferred volume. 

“I’ll go seven miles over the speed limit for you,” Jack announces as the engine roars to life. “But that’s it.”

“Thank you for your sacrifice,” Shawn says genuinely. “Alright, let’s go.”

“What time do you want me to pick you up?”

“What?”

“From the birthday dinner.”

Shawn stares flatly at Jack. “Are you stupid.”

Jack’s jaw clenches, his grip on the steering wheel tightening. “I’m not answering that.”

“You’re _coming_ to the party,” Shawn explains slowly. “Seriously, are you stupid?”

“I wasn’t invited,” Jack protests, confirming that he is, in fact, stupid.

Shawn reaches over the car’s console to thwack Jack’s shoulder. “You’re telling me Eric didn’t invite you?”

“No.” Jack scowls and bats Shawn’s hand away. “He’d told me there was the dinner, that it started after eight, that I shouldn’t get Morgan a gift since he’d get one for us, and — oh.”

“You’re so stupid.”

“Thank you.” Jack still looks faintly queasy, a worried crinkle in his forehead as he thrums his fingers along the dashboard. “I don’t wanna impose.”

Shawn frowns, turning the radio off. “What d’ya mean? You were invited.”

“Yeah, but I’m not _family_.”

Shawn snorts. “Neither am I.” 

“And you have the nerve to call me stupid. Who invited you to the party? Cory or Mr. and Mrs. Matthews?”

“All of them, actually.” Shawn toys with Cory’s mitten, still protecting his right hand from the cold as the car slowly warms, before he removes the mitten and holds it with both hands. “But Morgan asked me first.”

“Exactly. You’re family.” The way Jack says it, soft with sincerity but quiet with something painful — well, it hurts to hear, but it also brims Shawn with relief, knowing that he’s not the only one out of them who feels it too. The same, prickly, not-quite-jealousy of knowing his brother has a separate family with millions of memories and inside-jokes and an ease that they’ll never have with each other.

Jack isn’t like the Matthews’. He isn’t like Chet. Jack’s just ... Jack. And what they’ve got doesn’t look like anything else Shawn has. 

But it’s _theirs_. They made it all on their own and Shawn is so endlessly proud of it. And proud of them. 

“You’re coming to dinner,” Shawn says firmly. “Eric invited you. _I’m_ inviting you. You cannot ruin Morgan’s dinner by not showing up. Besides, isn’t it poetic to end our dad’s dead-day by going to a birthday party? The circle of life and all that? You’ve gotta complete the circle, bro.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll go. Complete the circle and all.” Jack’s moonlit smile is small, brief, but luminous. He l knocks his fist against Shawn’s before wrapping his hands back around the steering wheel.

Shawn turns the radio on again and raises the volume. Billy Joel croons over the speaker. Shawn sinks back in his seat, darts a quick glance out the window as the cemetery before Jack starts driving. Shawn considers staring out the window, counting the stars until they reach the Matthews’. 

But then Jack starts singing along to the music. Shawn doesn’t even remember the title of this song but he knows that Jack’s getting about thirty percent of the words wrong. Biting back a sleepy smile, Shawn lets himself hum along to the song too. 

Shawn leans away from the window. Slipping his hand back into Cory’s mitten, he joins Jack in looking forward to the road ahead of them as Jack drives them to Shawn’s first and forever home.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u so much for reading!! i tried find that in between of "wow, my dad was awful but i still loved him" without glossing over chet's neglect, so i hope that landed.
> 
> i'd love to know what you thought!! thank you so much for reading. you can always find me on tumblr @trulyalpha. take care and all the love to you!! <3


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